Bibliographic Managers are also known as Citation Managers and Reference Managers.
They allow you to organize your research, group articles into folders and sub-folders, annotate and make notes, and create bibliographies or works cited lists.
Many are open source. A comprehensive list is provided in this article by Jemimah Rodriguez, in a blog post for the company GoodFirms.
The guide provided here will offer tutorials and guidance on two popular platforms: Zotero and Mendeley.
Questions to ask while selecting:
| Feature | Zotero | Mendeley |
| Is it stand alone, or do I need an Internet connection? | can work offline | can work offline |
| Does it generate accurate citations? | Y | Y |
| Does it work with a word processor? Microsoft Word? Google docs? | Y | Word-yes, Google docs, no |
| Does it allow me to share my folders, articles, and research? | Y | Y |
| Does it store items on my computer or the cloud? | both | both |
| Does it integrate with my browser? | Y | Y |
| Does it import from my library's databases? | Y | Y |
| Does it work on multiple platforms? | Y | Y |
Zotero has two versions:
1) ZoteroBib (zbib.org) is a web-based bibliography generator. Easy to use if all you need is to generate your bibliography, with no notation or file management needed.
2) Zotero full version (https://www.zotero.org/) allows you to organize, cite, annotate, and share your research, as well as create bibliographies.
(From Mendeley's website, https://www.mendeley.com/search/):
Mendeley is a free reference manager that can help you store, organize, note, share and cite references and research data:
